An Evolution of Faith

Jennifer & Justin Noelle

The summer of 2014 was an important one for Jennifer Noelle and her husband Justin. Recently, they had become a Host Family for Safe Families for Children, voluntarily taking in children for short periods of time from the Near Eastside neighborhood of Indianapolis. While hosting two young African American men in their home that August, Jennifer and her husband watched the news stories coming out of Ferguson, Missouri about an 18-year-old African American man named Michael Brown who was fatally shot by a police officer. This confluence of events was the beginning of an evolution of their faith perspective for both Jennifer and Justin.

Their experience with the children they hosted was especially impactful. “Getting to know them and more about their life, I feel like it really opened our eyes to things maybe we had been previously more judgmental about and how difficult it is for people who are living in poverty to get the resources they need,” Jennifer tells me. “We became more interested in the criminal justice system and especially how it relates to young African American men.” 

The Noelle family

Jennifer and Justin sought to educate themselves, reading books like Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption by Bryan Stevenson and The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness by Michelle Alexander. “We felt really passionate about justice and how it relates to people of color and other minorities,” says Jennifer. “[We saw] that addiction is more of a health issue than a criminal issue and how once someone is in the criminal justice system they have that with them forever.”

While Jennifer’s brother David was in law school, he began an internship with Neighborhood Christian Legal Clinic. As they learned more about the Clinic, Jennifer and Justin became invested in its mission, and were particularly drawn to its immigration work. “[Lately] that aspect of your work has become all the more important. Or at least more highlighted,” Jennifer says. “We feel that the Bible is pretty clear about how we should treat people; that you guys are working to that end is really encouraging to us.”

Now regular donors to the Clinic, Jennifer explains her family’s support as part and parcel of their spiritual journey. “My husband and I really feel like an important tenet of our faith is service and also generosity … With our kids right now, we don’t have the capacity to volunteer, but we can give of our resources to support what you guys are doing.”

For those considering the next steps of their own faith journey, Jennifer has a message: “The more we have read and studied the Bible, the more we feel God’s heart for the poor and the marginalized and the oppressed,” she says. “So if people are looking for a way to come alongside an organization that is bringing the Kingdom and following these biblical mandates, you guys are doing all those things.” 

To learn more about how you can support the Clinic, please visit our website.